ok, I FOUND my problem via examining the source for jaxb-xjc (ri), and
putting in println's.
xjc does NOT like the following:
<target..>
<xjc ...>
<arg line="-Xhibernate-java"/>
xjc DOES like:
...
...
<arg value="-Xhibernate-java"/>
Hopefully others avoid the thrashing by seeing this post.
Thank you to those of you who responded quickly!
-jason